One And Only

Back in 1969, a young street racer attended the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona and watched Jim Baker win the Super Stock Eliminator in his Bill Thomas–equipped ’69 SS/EA Camaro. The excitement and passion birthed that day in the young spectator’s mind compelled him to visit Bill Thomas Race Cars in Anaheim with the intent of having Thomas build a performance car that was more potent than the generic big-block cars available at the local Chevrolet dealers. In plain language, if anyone could build a big-block car that would rule the street-racing scene in California, it was Bill Thomas. Street racing is stupid, but it was a stark reality of the muscle car world in 1969.

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Thomas began his career as an engineer with Chevrolet in 1957. He quickly established Bill Thomas Race Cars as an unofficial R&D arm of Chevrolet’s racing endeavors. Thomas created the legendary road racing Cheetah in 1964 to do battle with the Cobras, though the car was not successful in unseating the Cobra’s dominance. All the while, Thomas developed parts for drag racers and high-performance street-car enthusiasts. Muscle car history would be made in 1966 when Thomas forged an alliance with Nickey Chevrolet to upgrade the new-for-’67 Camaro with a 427 engine. Other Chevrolet dealers like Yenko, Baldwin, Berger, and Dana would eventually follow suit with their own versions of 427 Camaros, Corvettes, Novas, and Chevelles.

Even though Bill Thomas Race Cars was not a Chevrolet dealer, Thomas had enough contacts to procure any new vehicle a customer desired. Young Captain Street Racer chose a brand-new Cortez Silver, L78 396/375hp Nova SS as the starting point for his build. Led by Thomas’s team and mechanic Dave Cox, the 396 short-block was yanked in favor of a 427 replacement fitted with a BT550 cam, a Holley 3916 three-barrel carburetor, a Lakewood housing, headers, and a traction kit. Though details of its early years are a bit unclear, rest assured that the Nova made its presence known on the streets of Southern California. As far as collectors and the people involved in the creation of this car know, this is the only Bill Thomas ’69 427 Nova SS.

In 1979, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), the car was stolen. I didn’t do it. When the car was eventually recovered, it was put on blocks for 24 years. Sometime around 2003, word circulated about a big-block Nova available for purchase. Concurrently Dave Cox, who performed the original conversion of the car for Thomas, was looking for a cool car for a father-son project. Dave learned about the Nova, went to look at it, and determined that it was the same Nova he built at Thomas’s race shop in 1969. Still a hardcore hot rodder, Dave purchased the Nova and gave it an up-to-date Bill Thomas–style conversion. Set on creating a contemporary street fighter, Dave and son installed a 540ci Merlin big-block motor with a Richmond five-speed transmission and had the car painted to taste.

In 2009, Dave sold the car to Dean Klein, a car collector from Minnesota who had essentially stumbled upon it. Dean determined that the car was too significant to be left as purchased. After comparing notes with Bill Thomas III and Dave, Dean had Bob Adams, owner of MuscleCar Designs in Joliet, Illinois, restore this special SS Nova to its period-correct Bill Thomas–born splendor. The performance upgrades that had been performed in 1969 were painstakingly duplicated, including the BT550 cam and Holley three-barrel carburetor.

This particular Nova is not only art on four wheels but an education in day-two modifications, the kind that were performed not only in home garages in the late ’60s but more importantly by some of the biggest names in racing. Performance was the name of the game. As stout as these cars were from the factory, very few true gearheads left them alone. Some went so far as to find the best minds in the business to create a very special animal that would vie for King of the Streets. Bill Thomas was a prominent figure in that era, and his history lives on in the careful restorations of cars like this Nova SS.